“My position has
been clear, and therefore, the position of this government is
clear. Obviously, the conditions on the ground depend upon our capacity to
bring the troops home.”

-- G. W. Bush

These
words from our fearsome, fearless and frankly fat-headed
commander-in-chief were delivered last week in Crawford, Texas, more or
less in response to the protest of Cindy Sheehan, the California mother
and peace activist, whose son, Private Casey Sheehan, was killed in
Baghdad in 2004. Sheehan has been camped outside Bush’s holiday ranch
since August 6, demanding answers to the ongoing obscenity of the war in
Iraq.

By now, of course,
if you don’t know who Cindy Sheehan is, it’s because you haven’t been
reading, or listening, or watching, or “surfing,” or whatever it is you
fiddle with while Rome burns. And if you can’t tell that Ding-Dong, in the
above quotation, got the whole thing backwards, it’s for the same reason
-- you can’t read. Either that or you’re so inured to Bush-speak and
bullshit that your eyes and ears are permanently shut.

Obviously, what Bush
meant to say, having read and tried to memorize the lines they feed him
for these occasions, was exactly the opposite of what he did say --
namely, that “bringing the troops home” depends on “conditions on the
ground,” not the other way around. As frequently happens, Bush told the
truth inadvertently. “Conditions” in Iraq do depend entirely on our
getting the hell out, just as Cindy Sheehan insists.

As it happens, Ms.
Sheehan insists on more than that. She insists on a meeting with this
strutting punk of a president -- this “sneer on legs,” as my own mother
calls him (and that’s not the worst she has to say). Sheehan wants an
explanation of this “noble cause” Bush keeps talking about, for which her
son ostensibly died. She wants to know -- to her eternal credit -- why, if
the “cause” in Iraq is so “noble,” Bush’s daughters, Jenna and Barbara,
aren’t over there right now, doing their bit for all that nobility.
(After all, there are lots of things the twins could accomplish in Iraq.
If they didn’t want to be soldiers, they could always be “camp followers,”
serving the troops as the troops serve their country, ever a noble cause
in time of war.)

Cindy Sheehan makes
no secret of her desire to see George W. Bush impeached and, as of
Saturday, had actually called him “a s---” (modesty courtesy of the Fourth
Estate, which apparently believes that the sight of a good old Anglo-Saxon
expletive will bring America apart at the seams). Her “intemperate”
outburst, her lack of “civility,” her “name-calling,” will win Sheehan a
lot of friends on one side and a lot of enemies on the other, but she has
those already, and it doesn’t faze her. As Bush himself remarked last
week, “She feels strongly about her position. She has every right in the
world to say what she believes. This is America.”

It sure is, Junior,
and something tells me that Cindy Sheehan’s example is going to make you
realize it in a way you’ve never had to face it before. While her
opponents are busy smearing Sheehan as “treasonous,” an “America-hating
idiot,” a “tool”, a “pawn”, a “peacenik” and -- whatever this means --
“more antiwar protester than grieving mother,” let’s not forget that she
isn’t the only one out there, not even the only grieving mother in
Crawford.

“Isn't it
interesting,” asks columnist David Rossie, “that it is women, from Joan of
Arc to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to Rosa Parks and now
Cindy Sheehan, who have given impetus to great movements?”

Interesting, yes --
also historically verifiable. There are others that Rossie forgot to
mention, beginning with the heroine of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, the saga
-- a comedy, to be sure -- of a group of women in ancient Athens who,
disgusted by the Peloponnesian War, embark on a “sex strike” to force
their husbands to put down their spears and “vote for peace.” Laura ought
to try that one -- not that she’s anything more than “a lump” in
Ding-Dong’s bed. Bush’s explanation for not meeting Sheehan is enough to
turn your stomach. According to wire reports on Sunday, he is “aware” of
Cindy Sheehan’s “anti-war sentiments,” but, you know, he’s a very busy
man.

“Whether it be here
[in Crawford] or in Washington or anywhere else,” says Bush, “there's
somebody who has got something to say to the President, that's part of the
job. And I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to
those who have got something to say. But I think it's also important for
me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life.”

Since Bush’s life
consists of nothing but staged appearances, maniacal bike rides and
“brush-clearing” on the ranch -- how much “brush” can there be in
Crawford, anyway? What do they do, scatter it around the place when they
hear that Goofus is coming for another five-week vacation? -- this excuse
is more than lame. It’s a revolting insult. And I think that Cindy
Sheehan, if he dared to hear her, would tell our “commander” how lucky he
is to have a life in the first place.

“When the last
Marine leaves Iraq,” writes Gary Hart, “dead or alive, she can claim more
credit than them all. Because of the courage of one brave woman, she
quite possibly will have had more to do with finally bringing this great
nation back to its senses ... and to its principles.